


Infection

by manic_intent



Category: Les Misérables (2012)
Genre: 24601!Valjean, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Blow Jobs, Community: makinghugospin, Dark!Valjean, Javert's Self Loathing, Javert's Somewhat Confused Boner, M/M, That AU where Valjean got away with the silver and never had a religious revelation, and Javert is a young police spy who tries to infiltrate the outfit and gets discovered, and becomes some sort of mafia fixture in the Patron Minette, shiny new Constable Javert
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-05
Updated: 2013-09-05
Packaged: 2017-12-25 17:20:32
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,958
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/955725
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/manic_intent/pseuds/manic_intent
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Written for the prompt: Valjean got away clean with the bishop's silver and never had his Road-to-Damascus epiphany. Instead, he ends up becoming a powerful fixture in the Parisian underworld, one of Montparnasse's lieutenants.</p><p>Enter police spy Javert, dedicated to putting an end to corruption and gangs of thieves. Except, oops, Valjean recognizes him as his former prison guard, and is going to hand him over to Montparnasse. Unless Javert can convince him otherwise...</p>
            </blockquote>





	Infection

**Author's Note:**

> I have no excuses for this fic either. Sorry Javert. Too fun to torture. :( It's 130am, I'm going to sleep. D: I'll edit this fic again over the next few days. 
> 
> Unfortunately whatever I post in the kmeme with a link seems to come up marked as spam, so I don't think I'll try to mark this in the fills post or anything :/

I.

A priest once told Javert about the concept of karma - that good deeds evolve good deeds unto the giver. Javert, well-couched in police cynicism even at a young age, had laughed, and the priest had cursed him for being an unbeliever. That accusation remains untrue. Javert absolutely believes that there is a God.

Mere dumb fate could not, after all, conspire to be such a bastard.

He turns his face away, trying to pull his features into shadow, but he's too late - at the doorway to the fake cellars of the Jack, Jean Valjean freezes, staring straight at him. Recognition runs stark over his face, and for a moment there's an animal wariness to him, then he draws himself up and his lip curls, insolent. 

A life of stolen freedom has groomed the beast in 24601 and sharpened its teeth. Javert considers running, for a moment - he has the element of surprise on his side, at least where Valjean's lieutenants are concerned, but he stays frozen to the spot. He can't break cover, not yet. Not while there's still a glimmer of hope.

"You. The new one. Come." 24601 beckons to him, and again Javert hesitates, his pride and duty warring with caution, and reluctantly, he steps over, following Valjean deeper into the tavern. His chance is gone - he can see men fall into step behind him, probably to guard the door while they have a private conference. 

Perhaps he can - perhaps he can catch 24601 alone. Surprise him, somehow, make use of that newfound arrogance. Take him out quietly, and then find his way out, return to Gisquet and tell him that he has failed his mission - or-

"Sit." The cellar seems to have only one exit, but Javert knows from memory that there's very likely a hidden door, at least one, leading down into the catacombs. All of Montparnasse's boltholes have such a function, for easy disposal of bodies if nothing else. The thought nearly makes him waver again next to the door, but Valjean turns at the single table in the room and arches an eyebrow, and Javert sits where he's told. 

His palms are sweating, and he folds them under the table, keeping his feet flat on the ground. The chair isn't bolted down. Javert can use that as a weapon, perhaps, stun Valjean and-

"Something tells me that you did not expect me to be here," Valjean begins, and he has his hands folded behind his back. The gesture bunches his broad shoulders under the fine shirt and vest that he wears, the neatly cut trousers. Montparnasse may like to dress up his Captains, but on Valjean it's as effective as trying to hide a bear under a cravat.

Silently, Javert curses the resounding lack of police intelligence on the Patron Minette. The main actors are all known, but the supporting cast stands firmly in their shadow, despite all attempts by the police to date. Sending a spy into the ranks of the Patron Minette has been tried before and has failed each time: once, a spy was sent back in parcelled pieces, packed in salt, one piece per week for three months. After that, spying on the Patron Minette was a matter left for volunteers, usually young police officers itching to make an impression on Gisquet. 

Javert had been one such officer, seeking to make a quick jump from the rank of Constable to Inspector, if possible. He had been a fool.

"You broke parole," Javert says accusingly, automatically, and then he wishes back the words as Valjean smirks. The beast has scented blood. Javert has been careless.

"And _you_ have not been prudent." Valjean slouches down into the chair opposite Javert, one arm outflung on the desk, big fingers tapping at the rough wood. "You are with the police now?"

Javert considers lying, but he knows Valjean will not believe him. Not this man, who had looked upon him with resentment and hatred when he had walked out of Toulon with his parole papers, only to disappear into the night. What can he do? Javert nods, warily.

Valjean's laugh is a harsh bark. "You were too honest as a guard. That has not changed. You will not go far in the police." 

Stung, Javert snaps, "And you have fallen into step with the Patron Minette. Your criminal character-"

There's a harsh snort, and then Valjean smiles. It's a rough, uneven smile, lupine, the bestial look oddly _commanding_ rather than purely animalistic. It calls to the primal corners of Javert's soul, despite his training and his experience. Valjean unchained, fed, claws sharpened in the black ether of the Parisian underworld, has been groomed into a great hound - no. Not a hound. A great, dire wolf, with a wildness to his malice but with method to his savagery. Valjean would not have risen so far in Montparnasse's outfit had he not had some meld of strength and intelligence.

Staring, Javert almost misses Valjean's retort. "I _did_ try to get work. It was impossible with my papers." 

_And your appearance_ , Javert wants to say, but he holds his tongue. Valjean groomed, shaven, cleaned up and stuffed into a gentleman's clothes almost looks respectable - if one doesn't look at his eyes. "Life is hard everywhere," he mutters instead.

"A man has to live somehow," Valjean smirks, and he leans back, clearly bored of the conversation, not unlike a wolf tiring of toying with its prey. Javert bares his teeth in response. He is no rabbit to run before the jaws of a wolf. If he must die, he will at the least bloody that smirk. "So." 

"So." Javert echoes. He finds that he is calm. He knows what he wants to do, and how to do it. He has no family that will miss him. His life is set and in order, and it is a comforting thought for a policeman. 

Valjean studies him, searchingly, then he smiles again, that lupine and merciless smile, and with a sinking feeling, Javert knows that death is not on the table, at least, not tonight. The great wolf, once merely physically dangerous and impulsive, has learned more than criminality from Montparnasse. He has learned cruelty. 

"Perhaps we should trade," Valjean says, and his voice is like velvet. It does not fit his face, and Javert stiffens, already on guard. 

"I do not trade with criminals."

"Call it what you like," Valjean lifts a shoulder into a shrug, "Your kind have traded with the so-called criminal class for as long as your 'law' has existed." 

"You want to turn informant?" Javert frowns. It'll explain the privacy. Javert has been present before when a police sergeant had convinced a member of another street gang to turn insider - the man in question had been nervous, almost paranoid, frightened. Valjean slouches like a wolf curled in its den, confident of his control over his territory.

"No. But the concept is similar. I want half an hour of your honesty. After that, you may go free. You will not be harmed, either here or on your way back to the station-house. After that," Valjean grins his merciless grin, "If you involve yourself in our business again, we will not be so kind."

"Honesty? You want secrets?" Javert feels disgust, at first, and then a little hope. He's a lowly Constable. He knows no harmful secrets. Valjean laughs, which confirms Javert's opinion of his worth as a double informant.

"Well?"

Javert turns Valjean's proposition around in his mind. He can't see a way out of the tavern, not without getting shot, at the very least. Valjean only wants half an hour from him, and Javert has no harmful professional secrets to betray. He also has Valjean's promise that he will not be harmed. 

Of course, criminals are not to be trusted, but Javert supposes that some odds are better than no odds at all. "Very well," he says, at last, and stiffly. "Half an hour."

Valjean rises from the table, so abruptly that Javert flinches violently, but ignoring this, Valjean lopes over to the door instead, to speak quietly with one of the men outside. Even his stride is lupine, Javert notes, and he has to suppress a shiver, and the frisson of heat in his gut. Somewhere in the last few years, Valjean has reconciled himself to the beast within him, the monster that lies in the dark corners of every man's heart, dormant in most, active in the evil few. Javert has to be on his guard - constantly.

Finally, Valjean returns, with an antique hourglass that fits into the palm of his hand, probably stolen - its fittings are rich with brass, the stems curled with mother-of-pearl. It's a beautiful ornament, and Valjean turns it on its side, allowing white sand to start trickling down into the bottom bowl. He sets it on the table, and then he folds his arms and leans his hip against the edge. Valjean's eyes are hungry now, and Javert is unsettled all over again. 

"When did you leave Toulon?" Valjean asks.

Javert hopes that his relief isn't too obvious in his face. So Valjean is after _personal_ secrets. Well. Those, Javert will gladly trade, in the name of duty. "Two months after you were paroled."

"Why?"

"I have always wanted to work in the police. It was only then that there was an opening in Paris. The guard captain knew one of the Inspectors."

"So you have been here all this time," Valjean murmurs, and he seems amused. "Dear, capricious Fate. Why did you decide to become a police spy?"

And Javert explains, trying not to make it seem too obvious that he was watching the hourglass. He wants to make Inspector, and the climb for a man like him would otherwise be gruelling without some sort of spectacular breakthrough.

"A man like you?" Valjean repeats, curious.

"I am the son of a Gypsy woman, a prostitute," Javert lifts a shoulder into a shrug. "I was born in a bagne, not too different from Toulon. I did not know my father." 

For the first time, Valjean actually seems human - he blinks, surprised. "Surely this would not reflect on your character. You could not have controlled the measure of your birth."

Javert bites down on his retort, on the flash of temper that he felt at a convict's pity, and he says, gruffly, "It does, and it should. I grew up in the company of convicts, and for most of my life until Paris I knew no company beyond convicts and guards. Had the chaplain not taken me strictly under his guidance, I would have grown up no better than those around me."

"Still." Valjean notes, "You are young. Ambitious, certainly, but attempting to spy on the Patron Minette is reckless for someone of your experience and age. We had heard that the Inspectors were beginning to discourage… volunteers."

Javert shrugs. The son of a prostitute, howsoever much a Constable recommended to the ranks by a guard captain, is still the son of a prostitute. He is expendable and he knows it. "It was an assignment."

"But you volunteered?"

"As I said. There is no quicker way to be placed on track to become an Inspector." 

Valjean shakes his head slowly, and that lupine smirk creeps back over his face, taking his humanity with it. He leans over, gripping Javert's wrist so suddenly that he flinches with a stifled sound and tries to pull away - but Valjean's strength is inhuman, even if the grasp of his fingers is firm, not bruising. Callused fingers press over the underside of his wrist in a touch so gentle that it is almost a caress, and even as the breath leaves Javert in a punched-out gasp, Valjean snorts.

"Your heartbeat." Gods, Valjean is _fast_ now: he's been trained like all of Montparnasse's lieutenants are trained, to be deadlier than any soldier, and certainly more deadly than some poor dumb police Constable. Javert sucks in a tight breath as Valjean abruptly hauls him up onto the table, the only sign of the strain a clench to his jaw, and Javert - God help him - Javert feels lust pulse in an intense wave through his veins, roaring through his blood: he's flushed, he knows it, and his breathing goes shallow and high. Valjean hums, his eyes knowing, his grin lazy, then he snakes a big palm behind Javert's head and drags him over, kissing him roughly.

Javert has never been kissed before, and certainly not like this, not like being _devoured_ : he nearly bites down on Valjean's tongue as it's forced into his mouth, and he chokes, but then it's as though he's polluted by the madness and wildness of Valjean's touch. He whines, muffled and deep in his throat, shaking, but he doesn't try to shove Valjean away: his hands remain frozen on the desk, and when Valjean pulls away for a breath, he presses a growl of approval against Javert's mouth, serrated and deep, a wolf's caress. Javert whimpers. His cock has pressed itself hard against the confines of his trousers, achingly hard, and this is what prey feels like, drowning in the promise of death. He is caught. 

Valjean's lieutenants are either used to his proclivities, sharply disciplined, or both. Javert suspects the latter. When he had been introduced into this outfit, he had seen a discipline to its ranks that had felt new to him, and unsettling, like an inverted mirror of the police themselves, but better. Valjean ran a tight ship, perhaps through brute force, perhaps with cunning, but whatever it was, his men, lowlife brutes as they were, respected him. It had been intriguing. 

Now he thinks he understands. When Valjean noses at his neck, Javert tips back his chin, baring his pulse to the wolf's fangs, and he feels breathless, anticipatory. He isn't afraid any longer, or even angry. He _wants_ instead, with a vivid need that is both novel and frightening all at once, and he moans as Valjean licks over his neck and then nips him, lightly at first, and then hard enough at the juncture of his neck to bruise. Javert moans, broken and low, and Valjean responds by palming him roughly through his breeches, biting harder, it stings - he's been blooded - but it's nothing like the ache trapped under Valjean's hand. He bucks against the pressure with a strangled sob even as Valjean kisses him again, this time with the coppery taste of Javert's own blood over his teeth and his tongue and Javert jerks blindly against him as he spills and soils his trousers. 

"There," Valjean drawls, and his voice is rough like a bubbling snarl, his grin broad over his bared and reddened teeth. "Your honesty." He leans in, licks the wetness from the edges of Javert's eyes, and Javert lets out another low sob before he catches himself and grits his teeth. 

He almost expects Valjean to do more, but Valjean merely mockingly straightens his collar and steps around the desk to slouch back into the chair. The hourglass has run almost down, and as Javert watches, dumbly, the final sands trickle down onto the cone beneath. Half an hour. 

Honesty.

He is ruined. 

"You may go," Valjean says dismissively, and Javert grits his teeth. He would have struck Valjean there and then, but he finds that his hands are trembling. He has allowed the wolf to slake its hunger and he has been devoured. "Go," the wolf repeats, this time narrowing his eyes, and Javert jerks away from the table, nearly tripping over the chair, and he stumbles away to the door. 

The men outside it don't even look at him as he hurries out into the tavern, blindly pushing through to the darkened street beyond. He isn't troubled all of the way home to his flat, though he sees eyes in every shadow, a wolf's eyes. Watching him. Mocking him. It makes his cheeks burn. 

It makes his _blood_ burn.

He's stumbling again once he's locked the door behind him, his breaths in stuttered gasps, and he jams the palm of his hand briefly and tightly against his renewed arousal before letting out a thin cry of anger and despair and humiliation, and when Javert curls on his bed, he knots his fingers in his sheets.

II.

The Inspector, surprisingly enough - or unsurprisingly - does not seem disappointed that Javert has returned so quickly. Javert gives his report, though he leaves out the private meeting with Valjean altogether: he just mentions that he recognised Valjean and had to leave in case he himself was recognised.

He has learned to lie, and it is easier than he thought it would be. The wound that the wolf has left in his soul is festering, the infection seeping further and insidious, like a black taint. Javert feels bile rise in his throat and swallows it, even as the Inspector murmurs something comfortingly and sends him back to his post. 

The sergeant in his division is a touch more kindly than usual, and Javert gets assigned to light street patrols in a full complement, through the gentler areas of Paris, at least for now. Perhaps his nerve looks visibly shaken. Javert doesn't care. The driving ambition to make Inspector has left him. All he sees when he looks forward are the shadows, and a great, dire wolf prowling at the edges, baring its teeth into a lupine and bloodied smile.

He recovers, though, if only because the division is buried in work after a string of vicious murders. The murderer had chosen prostitutes as his victims, but instead of quietly gutting them at the docks or in dark alleys where the police could have unhurriedly conducted their investigations without the interference of the general public, the bodies are gutted and arrayed on main boulevards. Pressure mounts for a killer to be found, and any inch of free time a Constable can squeeze out from his duties are subsumed under double shifts.

This is good. This is a chase. A chase, Javert understands. It is black and white - the police on one end, a murderer on the other. Javert has no fondness for prostitutes, but he has a special loathing for men who would use their greater power over another to do murder such as this, for sport and spectacle. 

The murderer works with patterns, like an artist, and Javert finds himself spending his double shifts retracing his steps between his kills. The women are killed elsewhere and transported over to their 'framing' sites. Javert needs to understand how, and why. A cart, very likely. The bodies had all seemed fresh, but the time between a body appearing on the street and a disappearance, at least according to the prostitutes themselves, tended to run at least a day or so in between. They were worked on in storage, somewhere…

Studying the cobblestones, hoping for inspiration, Javert doesn't realize that he's wandered far out of the ambit of his usual patrol route until he nearly walks right into a walled garden. He frowns, a trifle annoyed with himself. This is the moneyed part of Paris, far from the slums. It's unlikely that the killer plays with his kills here. 

He turns, about to retrace his steps, then he freezes. Leaning against the wall of the alley he had come down is Valjean, grinning his wolfish grin, dressed like a gentleman again, complete with a beautiful olive green coat and a cravat. His smile is still merciless. 

"Constable Javert." 

"This isn't Montparnasse's territory," Javert's devoutly grateful that his voice doesn't quiver. To think - to think that he's just enjoyed a string of days where he's been too tired to dream. He's spent too long chased in the dark of his own mind by the great dire wolf - he had thought that he had earned his peace. Now he knows how mistaken he has been. The wolf has only let him run far enough to forget the predator sniffing at his heels. 

Still. Now he is not in the wolf's den, and he has a police whistle in his pocket. The Patron Minette have no territory here because of the increased police presence - the moneyed elite buy favours indiscriminately. 

Valjean grins lazily, however, unafraid, and Javert stiffens, his hands frozen at his sides instead of going for his pockets. "Working hard, I see. On the heels of the Dagger Man?"

Gisquet hates that name, but Javert feels struck dumb - he merely nods, slowly. 

"Suppose we could give you a hint," Valjean notes meditatively, and Javert narrows his eyes. Now his hand goes into his pocket, clenching around the whistle, and Valjean laughs. "It was not my doing, Javert, nor any of the Patron Minette. Why would we kill our own workers? Most of Paris' fallen women pay tithe to us in some way or another. This has been very bad for business. The Madames are demanding blood."

Javert's nod is less cautious, this time. Gisquet had guessed this from the start. Murderers like this did not belong to the Patron Minette. They were, after all, a business-oriented criminal enterprise, and the murders they committed only furthered some sort of profit in some way or another. Serial killers only killed for pleasure. There's no real distinction between the two, but for all of his sins, Valjean and his kind are certainly innocent of the killer's crimes. 

"You seem less friendly than before," Valjean drawls, and he pushes away from the wall, approaching with his loping stride. Javert doesn't realize that he's backing off until he steps on something that crunches under his heel - he startles violently, and realizes that he's backed into the garden, through the open gate. He freezes, expecting the owner of the house to emerge at any moment, but there's only silence, and Valjean has made use of his distraction, dragging him around the house into the deeper shadows cast by the walls. The garden is overgrown, Javert notes belatedly, and the house is dark. Unusual, for this corner of Paris, but not too strange. Some of the rich have summer houses in Paris, and spend its winters in warmer climates. 

He doesn't struggle. It doesn't occur to him to try, and when Valjean pushes him against the brick and takes his mouth again, Javert only moans, his hands clenching in Valjean's coat. The infection in his soul welcomes the surety of Valjean's touch and the bite of his teeth. He struggles against the clawing darkness rooted in his own soul and he can feel himself weaken, shivering as Valjean's thumb rubs over his cheek, letting out a whimper when Valjean pulls away, grinning lazily, and pushes him firmly but inevitably to his knees.

Innocence is destroyed quickly in a bagne, and Javert has never been innocent. He knows what Valjean wants, and he's - hes beyond disgust now, somehow. He swallows hard, and he can't think, not of what it would look like to be caught here like this, in his uniform, on his knees before one of the Patron Minette, not of what his duty is. His hand is still gripped tight around the police whistle in his pocket, but his free hand is clutched over Valjean's hip, and he lets out another shaky sound as Valjean fumbles with his clothes and eventually frees himself of enough of them to draw out an impressively large and flushed cock. 

The musk itself nearly chokes him, but Javert finds himself grasping the thickened flesh tentatively, uncertain at first, then more firmly when Valjean grunts and jerks against his grip. He lowers his mouth, licking the tip, and he nearly moans at the taste, the weight of it, seasoned by the rough gasp that Valjean makes as he does so. It isn't unpleasant. It's… it is like power, in a way, somehow. He licks, and it is Valjean whose hands shake a little where they're clenched over his shoulders, Valjean who moans as though his world is shaken. Javert licks harder, up and down the length of it, his fingers growing wet, nosing along the pulse of the vein, revelling in every groan that Valjean makes, every growl: he has the wolf by its tail, and it is coming to heel - he has its attention and he isn't the one that is burned.

Encouraged, elated, Javert sucks lightly over the tip, pressing the flat of his tongue hard against the leaking slit, and then he yelps and sputters as Valjean comes in thick spurts over his mouth, then his jaw, holding him in place with a hand over his skull. Blindly, he swallows, uncontrollably at first, then he cannot stop himself, licking it up, catching what he can with his hands, drinking that too - it is bitter, God, it is bitter, but he cannot stop. Valjean mutters something profane in a whispering breath that sounds more like a prayer than a curse, then he drags Javert up and kisses him with all the violence in his soul - Javert's lip is mauled before he is done, and big fingers are working at Javert's belt, then his trousers, then his cock, and Javert sobs and presses his cheek against Valjean's shoulder when he comes. Again, it is too much.

Again, he wants more. The infection has burned itself into his soul.

" _Mon petit tigre,_ " Valjean murmurs into his ear, and there's something nearly tender about his mocking tone, as he nips and tugs at the fleshy lobe with his teeth. 

He has wiped his hands on something - some handkerchief, Javert registers, dazed. He cleans himself off, then Javert, then the wolf is grinning at him as the handkerchief is balled up and shoved into Javert's pocket, over his police whistle, the bastard. Valjean fixes up their clothes, then he kisses Javert full on the mouth with a mockery of a lover's tenderness. Javert shivers. He feels hungry all over again. He feels filthy.

"Get away from here," he says instead, unsteadily.

"Ah, but I was looking for you. I wished to… help the police with their inquiries." Valjean presses a piece of paper into Javert's palm. "We have better eyes than the police. But I think perhaps that you can afford more men on the ground. Still, it is a race." Valjean kisses him again, more slowly this time, and Javert clenches his teeth, ignoring the playful lick against his lips. "Whether you find him first, or we do. Good luck, Constable." 

He doesn't look at the paper until he is sure that Valjean is gone. There's an address on it, printed in surprisingly neat handwriting. 

The tip off is good - it leads to a basement, squirrelled away on the edges of the Latin Quarter, and Javert is attached to the main task force. He acquits himself by patiently examining property records and witness statements, and when they make the arrest, of a doctor who lives in a veritable house of horrors locked up tight near the Seine, he is in the strike force. 

Gisquet promotes him to Sergeant, with a congratulatory note that implies heavily that the rank of Inspector lies in his future if he makes no mistakes, but Javert can't find it in himself to be pleased. The wolf has torn this away from him, as well. He can't find pleasure in honesty any longer. He has been maimed worse than he had thought.

III.

The Patron Minette expands like cankers expand when not lanced, and Valjean grows busy, perhaps. He is still everywhere, though, in Montparnasse's territories, at least. Whenever Javert walks through them, he is sure that he is being watched. Or perhaps it is paranoia. Sometimes he sees no sign of Valjean in months, and then he will get a little reminder of his existence, of Javert's personal failures. A bunch of garden flowers delivered to his door - anonymously, of course. Or the occasional neatly written note, sent to his desk. The Patron Minette are, by their nature, at war with other competing outfits in Paris, and it seems they're not above using the police to get their way. So much for honour among thieves.

Gisquet commends him for his 'methods' with each capture. Javert never knows what to say. He tries not to take credit, and earns an unfortunate reputation for modesty. It isn't anything of the sort. He's dancing to the wolf's tune. Valjean is stalking him again from the shadows, waiting to strike. 

He makes Inspector after they clear out a warren of thieves and pickpockets, sending them all to the bagne, but Javert feels no pleasure in this, either. The new uniform looks splendid, and his new hat, but he sees nothing in them of the ambition he once had. Javert takes to walking some nights over the parapet of the great stone bridge, overlooking the Seine. The impulse growing at the edges of his soul hasn't yet grown solid, but he thinks perhaps that he can see the shape that it forms. Feel the sudden plunge, the abrupt and bone-breaking stop. Someday.

Once, after a long day, he walks over to the bridge only to find Valjean already standing on the parapet, balancing with mock playfulness on the edge. If he rushes over, Javert thinks, he might surprise Valjean and push him over the edge and… and… that will not rid him of the taint in his soul. It will worsen it. Policemen do not murder. They bring criminals to justice. 

He walks over instead, scowling. "Get down from there."

"I was merely wondering," Valjean notes innocently, "What the attraction was." 

Valjean has been watching him all this while, then. Or he's had Javert watched, which is more likely. Javert clenches his fists. "It's none of your concern."

Valjean continues to pace over the very edge, precariously so, and Javert feels a cold sweat prickle over his back, anxious. "I suppose the view is lovely," Valjean notes, as though oblivious. 

"Get _down_ ," Javert snaps, scrambling up onto the parapet and grabbing for Valjean - Valjean, however, merely grins that dangerous grin and picks Javert up as though he weighs nothing, hands clenched tight over Javert's sleeves, lifting him off his feet. Javert holds his breath, blinking. If Valjean tosses him off the bridge - no. He won't. There's no murder in the wolf, for all its sins, for all that it has chosen Montparnasse as a master. Javert knows this now.

As he thought, Valjean steps off the parapet, then he sets Javert gently on the ground and dusts him off, again mockingly. "I like your new uniform."

"It is just a uniform."

"Are you happy now?" Valjean inquires, and he's genuinely curious, no mockery in his tone or expression. That's a surprise. Javert blinks, confused, and Valjean adds, "You told me that you wanted to make Inspector."

Oh. Valjean had remembered. "I," Javert begins, then he swallows. "I do not know."

"Yes," Valjean hasn't let him go - his hands still rest over Javert's sleeves. "I thought so. Men like you cannot be content," he adds, when Javert frowns at him, "The scent of the chase is forever in your soul."

"What would _you_ know of my soul?" Javert bites out venomously before he can help it. "You - you who have marked me, ruined me, I… I cannot but help - _you_ -" 

Valjean kisses him, and this is not anywhere near a lover's tenderness, like the last - it is the wolf again, unchained, devouring. Javert twists up against him, clutching for it, craving it. He is damned. Dazed. He clings to Valjean as Valjean whistles, and he barely looks up when an unmarked carriage clatters over.

"Your life is not yours to take," the wolf whispers to him, curled around him in the chokingly thick darkness as they rattle their way through the streets, the curtains drawn down over the windows. "Do you understand me, _petit tigre_?"

"Stop calling me that," Javert growls, irked. He isn't young any longer, and if he is a tiger, he's no longer a cub. The wolf, however, laughs in his face, undoing the leather stock at his neck, and bites him hard - he'll feel it under the stock tomorrow, Javert thinks, and he whines. 

"Do you understand me?" Valjean repeats, his breath hot against Javert's lips, and Javert is helpless again, his bicorne hat askew, his uniform in disarray and his soul yet again pinned bare. 

He nods, but Valjean waits still longer, and eventually, Javert chokes, "Yes."

"Good," He gets a kiss, one of those gentler ones, and he licks blindly into it, dumbly grateful, _pleased_ , and he should hate this, he should twist away, but instead he rubs his palms tentatively up and down Valjean's sleeves. He wants to please. He doesn't. He needs-

The carriage comes to a stop, and Javert barely notices what street they're in - he's hustled into a townhouse, kissed again once they get the door closed, and his hat goes tumbling, his rapier scabbard unbuckled and tossed aside, his boots and tailcoat littering the ground, then his stock, and they line the way up the stairs to Valjean's bedchambers with the rest of their clothes. Valjean's scars are horrific even in the muted light of the candle he has struck and brought to the bedside in its holder, but they're familiar - or at least, the old ones are. He's known that part of Valjean's life. Now he will understand the rest of it. 

Somehow, Valjean gets his trousers and underclothing off him but not his riding boots, but even as Javert reaches down to help, Valjean brushes him off with a hungry smirk, shoving him further up along the bed. Javert feels ridiculous - he flushes as Valjean nudges his thighs open, and tries to sit up, but he's pinned in a flash with a palm pressed over his shoulder. He feels more exposed than he's ever been in his life. Valjean grips his leather-clad ankles, stroking palms up the high boots, and Javert's flush deepens as Valjean looks him slowly over, as though memorising him. Now he feels like a whore.

This thought makes his cock jump, and if that doesn't highlight how twisted his soul has become, nothing will. Javert lies passive, watching as Valjean gets rid of his own clothes, until the wolf is crouched bare over him, teeth bared, and if anything he only looks _more_ dangerous, not less, shed of all the trappings of civilisation. Javert's breath is tight in his throat - he can't breathe - again the wolf calls to the dark corners of his soul, even as Valjean bends to lap a stripe up over his ribs. It makes him flinch, and gasp, and then he groans as Valjean teases another stripe up over his skin, this time further up, over a scar that an over-eager convict had once left on him during an attempted escape. 

Valjean's scars are known to him, but Javert's are new to Valjean, and the wolf is scenting its prey entire, exploring every scar, every old knife wound, every scratch and fissure. The old wound against his flank from a bullet grazing him gets special attention, all licks and nips and kisses, and Javert is dazed from it all by the time Valjean lifts his head. He can't fight this. He doesn't know how. He can but lie still and allow himself to be consumed. 

"I want to hear you," Valjean growls, and bites down over his hip - Javert yelps. "Better," Valjean whispers, grinning his merciless grin, and now he licks a stripe up Javert's cock and makes him gasp. "More," Valjean adds, and the laps grow heavy, as sure as confident as Valjean himself, over his painfully aching cock, over his balls, drawing tight, over the sensitive flesh under his thighs. Javert claws at the sheets and sobs. It would have been better if he had jumped into the Seine. This is torture and not torture, and he cannot handle it. He cannot endure. 

" _Please_ ," he chokes out eventually, when Valjean seems content merely to taste him. "Mercy."

"'Mercy', the policeman asks," Valjean muses, and there will be no mercy, Javert sees, from the white line of Valjean's bared teeth - white only for a moment before the wolf sinks its fangs into the soft flesh of Javert's thigh, dragging a cry of pain from his lips. Valjean's teeth come away bloodied again, and Javert's cock leaks against his belly, God. 

"Please," Javert begs anyway, because his honour has been taken by the wolf, and the righteousness he had nurtured from his youth, and now the wolf will take his pride and the rest of his soul, "Please. _Please_."

Valjean's response is to reach out of sight, to the pockets of his discarded trousers, coming back with a small bottle of oil. Javert sucks in a soft breath - he knows what that is for - and Valjean glances over at him inquiringly. Valjean, Javert realizes, with a dull clarity and surprise, will not force him.

But then again, he does not need to. Javert has writ his surrender in every shaky breath that he takes, in the uniform he has left in fragments within the home of one of the Patron Minette. He waits, and eventually, Valjean uncorks the bottle and slicks up two of his fingers. Preparation is uncomfortable, but not painful, and Valjean keeps his interest by exploring Javert's scars all over again, this time with teeth - his skin is stinging and sore by the time two fingers become three, and he's writhing and whimpering by the time Valjean finally lines himself up, oiled and ready, and pushes his way _in_. 

It's agony with every breath, every second of it, but Javert welcomes it. Damnation is not meant to be pleasurable. He digs the heels of his boots into the sheets and tries to buck into the pressure, but Valjean curses and holds him still, sinking deeper, then deeper yet until they are joined and the pain is like nothing Javert has ever felt and it is glorious. 

"It will get better," Valjean says soothingly, his voice husky next to Javert's ear. "Breathe."

"It's good - like this, it is good," Javert is babbling. He doesn't care. "I've waited for this - I wanted this, I-"

"Breathe," Valjean cuts through his words, and kisses him again, slow and sure. It takes a while, but eventually the pain ebbs, and Valjean rolls his hips, pressing Javert against the bed, and he is so full that he feels that this must be impossible, unnatural, this - and oh - and there, Valjean's merciless smile, as Javert writhes. Valjean had pressed against something deep within him that had flooded him with a madness of pleasure. 

The wolf stops playing at gentleness, after that. Valjean balances his weight against him and the bed, then he simply _takes_ him, grunting as he drives into Javert, against _that_ , wrenching wounded cries from him that turn into screams and then he is just keening Valjean's name, his voice broken, his will in fragments, his booted heels crossed around Valjean's back, urging him on. The bed creaks under each powerful thrust, and Valjean's eyes are wild again: this, Javert also remembers. There's none of the groomed wolf in waiting here. Valjean growls and marks his shoulders with bites more painful than the last, and the final one, just over the curve of his bicep, is savage. 

It punches Javert right over the edge into freefall and then cuts the strings. He sinks against the bed, dizzy and brilliantly sated. Valjean watches him through it all, then he grunts, pulls out, and roughly turns Javert over onto his front. Confused, Javert doesn't fight it, still trying to catch his breath, then he yelps as he feels warm fluid spill over the cleft of his rump. Valjean has marked him again. As Javert's cock tries to twitch, Valjean chuckles, low and rough, holding Javert's cheeks open, then pressing some of his seed into Javert's stretched entrance with a thumb, stroking it into the sore walls. Javert whimpers, and presses his face into the pillow. It's too much. 

"You will go back to work tomorrow," Valjean whispers, as he presses slow, wet kisses up Javert's spine, from the small of his back up. "Report for duty. Carry on with your work. But should you ever think of the bridge, come to me instead." 

Javert stiffens, but his voice is too broken to answer with anything but a rasp, so he says nothing. Valjean is undeterred. "Do you understand?" he asks, and nips at the nape of Javert's neck, like a wolf reprimanding a cub, and Javert shivers. He nods, and Valjean presses a kiss over the nip, as though in reward. Javert wants to turn around and kiss him. First on the mouth, then on his scars, especially the new ones. He lies still. He still has some self-respect.

He does, however, sleep with no dreams, and he's rested come the morning, as he sits up blinking the bed, bruised and sore. Valjean has removed his boots somewhere in the night, and his uniform is folded neatly over a chair, but Valjean himself is gone. Javert feels painfully relieved, even as he wipes himself on the sheets awkwardly, then finds a basin of water and basic toiletries set out on a desk. He cleans up, dresses, and reports for duty - he can do no more, or less, but he does not feel lost. Somewhere, even here, far from the shadows, the wolf is circling him, waiting again for his chance. 

Someday, Javert will be ready to answer its teeth with teeth of his own. Maybe. 

He no longer walks over the bridge.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! If you'll like to discuss ficbunnies, I'm available on twitter @manic_intent. :)


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